The day has come, our wedding pictures have finally arrived. Well, arrived to our screen.

Jeremy has been working hard to go through our thousands of photos and he has now opened up the gates and we can look at all of them. There are a few different places you can look, starting with Facebook and his blog post and then also a slideshow (~400 photos) and the full gallery (~850 photos). The full gallery will also allow you to purchase prints of many sizes if you wish. Enjoy!

• Facebook
• Blog
• Slideshow
• Gallery (password: radcliffe)

Jeremy just posted our engagement photos!  They look AWESOME and we are super excited to have him take our wedding photos.  You can view the photos on Facebook or Jeremy’s blog.

Happy Birthday to Jessica King!! The beautiful momma and bridesmaid!!

Today, I made some important floral decisions.  My florist (friend of the family and biology extraordinaire), Grace Schmitt has some awesome ideas and really knows her stuff.  The flowers are going to be beautiful, fun, classy, and very Katie Stipe-ish.  Dave said, “cool.”  He doesn’t really care about the flowers much.

Good news readers!! As we speak Dave is in the other room receiving invitations as they are printed.  It really is an exciting feat given that we have spent the last couple of nights fighting with an overexcited printer and aligning the things correctly; but finally – VICTORY!  70 gleaming invitations are stacked next to me and the stack keeps growing.  It really is very exciting.

Dave and I are finishing the guest list and tonight, my maid of honor Sarah is coming over to begin addressing envelopes! WOO!

Dave bought me a Swiffer today.  To those of you who are thinking back to that climactic “Father of the Bride” moment when Annie came storming in to her parents cataloging her gifts, and proclaims that she isn’t getting married anymore (to Steve Martin’s delight) because her fiance bought her a blender – put this out of your mind.  It was nothing like that.  I had been saying that I wanted one for a while so that mopping the kitchen wouldn’t be such a big to-do everything couple of days.  He also bought me the swiffer wet clothes.  Morale of the story – the house smells amazing and the floors are shiny. This makes Katie happy!

Now for the rest of the house – it looks like Bridezilla Kong went tramping through and left in her wake a mess of wedding hoopla.  There are gifts and napkins and jewelry and contracts and menus and magazines and pictures and lists and post-it notes and registries all over the place.  The dining room table has been converted to an invitation only zone.  (No food or drink allowed) and 80% of David’s bedroom is just…stuff.  Bubbles and gifts.

It’s a nuthouse.

It’s the best.

Well, I had better get back to work.  After Swiffering every hard surface in the house I thought I would take a minute and write to you all.  I hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Ciao!

Oh my!! Oh my!!  Who would have expected that making your own invitations would cause such dysfunction?  Dave and I have been sitting at the kitchen table for near two hours now trying to match colors and figure out sizes for paper while not trying to break the bank.  Yuck!  Dave, who is now well versed in all the different shades of crème, let’s off a little yelp now and then when he almost finds something.  It’s charming.

Invitation catalogues are scattered on the floor all around us – they were unhelpful – and as the frustration rises, so does the heat in the dining room.  Dave just got up and got some ice cream to cool himself off.  This has proven to be quite an undertaking and not once have I wished I was doing anything else.

On Tuesday, my maid of honor Sarah, Maria, and Grace (the lady doing my flowers) all met with the reception hall to get ideas about centerpieces and décor for the big parrrrtaaay.  It was nice to see the inside of it again and I’m so excited, it really is a neat place.  We are in the full swing of things now, I’ve ordered more than my fair share of wedding supplies off theknot.com today; thank goodness for super sales.

I am meeting with Grace again on Saturday to talk more about the flowers, I’m really excited!  Grace is such a neat lady and her enthusiasm is such a blessing.

I heard back from our violinist and he is good to go! I just have to figure out a pianist and the music for the ceremony is taken care of.  Scratch that, the people PLAYING the music are almost taken care of; choosing the music for the ceremony is an entirely different matter.

We are looking into videographers and have been disappointed thus far, I’m hoping our luck turns around but we shall see.  I hope to have good news in that area in my next blog, until then it is time to get back to work on the invites!!

Cheers!!

Greetings!! Today is Sunday and what a Sunday it is in Brownsburg!! Dave’s apartment complex is having an auto show in the back parking lot and as you drive into the complex there is a giant inflatable rhinoceros.  Seriously, I’m not joking – It is amazing.

We spent most of yesterday in Target registering.  So far I think the best part about all of this is registering.  It is so much fun!! For me, just getting to see all the stuff that is used in the kitchen was amazing.  I am slowly but surely working my way into the cooking world and I am confident that my cooking will someday reach the brilliance of Maria’s cooking…but until then Dave just smiles and tells me a doing a great job.  Although, I think if I burn dinner one more time he may not be as kind.  We’ve registered at Bed, Bath and Beyond as well as Target.  Today, after I’ve finished this blog and Dave finishes the lunch dishes, we plan on making our way to Macy’s to finish registering.  It will be a bittersweet end to our registering adventures and Dave will miss holding the scan gun and scanning random things that I have to take off later….but that’s what this is about, having fun!

I had my first bridal fitting yesterday afternoon, oh my goodness.  It was great. I haven’t seen my dress since the day that I bought it as it stayed at the Bridal Superstore so that nothing would happen to it, or worse Dave would see it.  Wearing the dress again made me really feel like this was happening.  I mean, you think about your wedding your whole life and now that it is really happening it’s kind of surreal. Dave and I are so blessed to have found each other; I am absolutely thrilled with the way everything is coming together.

We met with the wedding coordinator at the church on Saturday morning, she’s the best.  She was so helpful and really gave me a lot of guidance as to how to plan the ceremony and what to think about for the day of.  You never really think about all the stuff that has to go on “day of” until you have to orchestrate it.  Thankfully Maria, her wonderful friends, and Kellie Ellis (the wedding coordinator) are all very smart and extremely capable.  They will all be a huge help during this time.

Speaking of amazing people and help, I’m excited to say that Sarah Miller, my maid of honor, will be returning from Africa in one hour!!  She has been gone for 2 months and I will be relieved and excited to have her on the same continent.  She is one of the sweetest ladies you’ll ever meet and I’m so excited that she will be my maid of honor!  I cannot wait to see her!

Dave and I are looking into creating the invitations sometime this week.  We’ve gathered samples of paper and now we just need to take the plunge and buy it.  I am hoping to send the invitations out September 1st…or so.  I also would like to have them done before classes start back up on the 27th of this month.

So as you can see there is a lot going on in our lives.  I will update as much as humanly possible to keep all our out of town family and friends – as well as our in town family and friends that we do not get to talk to on a regular basis – updated on the Stipe/Radcliffe wedding happenings.  If you ever need to get a hold of me just email me at kate@daveandkate.us.

We love you all very much and are grateful for your love and support during this romantic and exciting time in our lives.  We look forward to seeing you all in October!

Ta-ta for now!

Hello friends and family!! Welcome to our blog!! When we originally designed this site, its intention was to keep family and friends informed about our wedding; but as we’ve talked about what to do with it after October 17th we decided to have this site be our primary means to keep family and friends informed about the happenings in what will soon be the Radcliffe household.  For now, this blog will serve as means of communication for everyone who wants to know what is happening with the wedding, and what we have recently accomplished in the planning process.  Stay tuned after October 17th for updates about Dave and I; and in a couple years we hope to use this site to update everyone on our growing family….but that won’t be for a while.